The Biblical Baseball Team

(Written in collaboration with my brother, David Kienzler: For his commentary on the team, which is a highly amusing read, please click here.)

This is the third installment of my series of Sports Teams Made up of Fake Characters (in this case that point is debatable depending on your belief system, but you get my point).

This one was the most spirited and by far the longest argument, therefore required the most alcoholic consumption. Is that sacrilegious reasoning? Eh, guess it doesn't matter, after this article I am going to hell anyway.

So without further ado, here are the rules outlining our criteria for the Biblical baseball team:

• All players had to be religious figures
• The team had to be an American League team
• God could not participate
• The player had to be tangible

(The players will be in batting order with their position next to it)

 

Leading off and playing second base: John the Baptist

He was quick to follow Jesus and was a leader in the movement, which should probably make him quick to get out of the batters box and quick enough to steal bases.

 

Batting second and playing Center field: Jesus

He can track down any ball hit in his direction and if he can rise from the dead, you know he can rise up a wall to steal a home run. And he is, predictably, a big sacrifice guy. Sac bunt, sac fly... whatever it takes to move the runner over or to manufacture a run.

 

Batting third and playing first base: Moses

He led the Jews out of Egypt, so he can totally lead a team to a championship. Not the fasted guy, but brings power and intensity.

 

Batting fourth and hitting as the DH: Goliath

Big, big hitter. No chance of him accomplishing much in the field, but his size should make him good for 40-50 home runs and 120+ RBI.

 

Batting fifth and playing third base: Sampson

Since this team is backed by God, they are like the anti-Yankees, so thus long hair is allowed which is where Sampson gets most of his power from. That allows him to protect Goliath and to also make the long throw across the diamond.

His lack of quickness kept us from putting him at shortstop.

 

Batting sixth and playing behind the plate: Pestilence

This was a debated decision since Pestilence is not an actual person, but when it comes to nastiness, what else could you put there. No one would be dumb enough to try and run Pestilence over on a play at the plate and if they did, they would slowly wither away and die (probably during post game interviews). That is intimidation.

 

Batting seventh and playing left field: David

If he can hit Goliath with a pebble from across a field, you know he can throw a perfect one-hopper to the plate. Not going to get a lot of baserunners to test him. Small guy though, more of a contact hitter than anything.

 

Batting eighth and playing right field: Joseph

First off, you know he will look spiffy in whatever uniform the Biblical team wears. I mean the man can pull of the technicolor look. Second, with his ability to anticipate the future, he will get a better jump on the ball than anyone ('cept his center field counterpart) making his defense more than solid.

Again though, small guy with not a lot of power.

 

Batting ninth and playing shortstop:  ...We will come back to this spot. It needs more explaining than a couple sentences.

 

Utility infielder No. 1: Daniel

On the plus side, he survived in a Lions den so you know the man is fearless. On the negative side, he didn't actually do anything physically amazing to defeat the Lions so you have to question his abilities.

 

Utility player No. 2: Frank Christ

A throw in to Jesus' contract, Frank has a solid glove but a below average bat. A defensive replacement should anyone be martyred.

 

Head Coach: Solomon

A great king, Solomon possesses wisdom and power, which should keep all the players in line and together. Although his leadership did lead to the split of his great kingdom so there could be problems in the long term. 

 

General Manager: Abraham

The Patriarch of all, Abraham is old school and will know how to build a team up from scratch. He will also have unwavering faith (which could be said for most of the players).

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PITCHING

Starting Rotation

No. 1 starter: Peter

My brother said it best, "Rock of our Church, Rock of our lineup"

 

No. 2 starter: Joshua

Listen, if he can bring down the walls of Jericho by marching around it seven times, he can bring the heat for at least seven innings.

 

No. 3 starter: Isaac

A crafy left hander, Isaac provides some stability in the middle of the rotation. And yes, we just randomly decided that he was a left hander.

 

No. 4 starter: Cain

Sure he was a jealous murder, but you know he will do whatever it takes to win plus, he is the only real guy in our rotation that will bean a hitter to prove a point. That has to count for something

 

No. 5 starter: Lazarus

A crafty veteran on the back end of the rotation, we figured if he could come back from the dead, he could come back from a seemingly dead career for one last decent season. My brother put it best, "He’s like Tom Berenger in Major League, 'cept as a pitcher not a catcher."

 

Set-up man: Jeremiah

Resilient, Jeremiah warned people before bad things happened (such as the Babylonians invading). For our team, he is warning the hitters that our closer is coming, which is bad news for them. He also is a bit cooky, wearing an egg yoke around his neck sometimes. Nothing like a weird pitcher to make hitters nervous.

 

Closer: Judas

While his loyalty may rest with where the money is, he is without a doubt a mean and nasty lockdown closer.

 

And that brings us back to the shortstop position. After several hours and far to many rounds, we narrowed our list of possible shortstops to four: Michael the Archangel (with his wings tied to be fair), The Ark of the Covenant, Ozzie Smith, and Mohammed.

We ruled out Michael first, because we figured with his wings tied, he would be far less effective. Then we ruled out the favorite choice, Ozzie, because as divine as his play was, he never actually came up in the bible...which should be changed come the next edition.

That left us with the Ark and Mohammed. We liked the Ark because, with the poles included, it could cover a large area, not to mention the lead it could get off of first base. But the fact that the covenant is an object made it really hard for us to put it in the field. It just didn't seem right.

On the other hand, Mohammed didn't feel right either considering he was basically a rival and could provide a lot of unwanted locker room conflicts.

Eventually, after my brother ranting on and on about how Mohammed was a "FIVE TIME GOLD GLOVER" we agreed that Mohammed would be a trade deadline deal and play shortstop. 

We figured the tension he would cause in the locker room could be squashed, at least temporarily, by the rest of the team's cohesiveness. Certainly not a long term option there, but add him to this line up and you have great defense, better than average pitching and enough hitting that a championship should follow shortly.